The paparazzo with whom former One Direction member Louis Tomlinson scuffled with at LAX has a long history of goading celebrities in order to get a reaction, and he's even boasted about it.
In a 2010 interview with Howard Stern, unearthed by TMZ, photographer Karl Larsen boasted about letting celebrities "dig their own hole."
"Paparazzi 101 is you don't want to confront anybody," he told the shock jock. "You just want them to dig their own hole."
He spoke about one particular incident with Mel Gibson in which he wanted to "berate him and pepper him with good questions that society would want to ask." During video of that incident an irritated, but never violent, Mel approached Karl's car with his cell phone recording video to turn the tables. The photog can be heard saying, "We're gonna be rich."
On Friday, the former boy bander was arrested after he and Karl got into an altercation while Louis' and his on-again former girlfriend Eleanor Calder were collecting their luggage from baggage claim following a trip to Las Vegas.
In video obtained by Radar Online, Louis can be seen racing to Eleanor's defense as a photographer runs to cut her off and begins snapping close-range shots as she covers her face with her hands.
"Seriously now," Louis can be heard saying as he makes a grab for the camera, blocking the photographer from a retreating Elanor.
The two men then appear to trip over each other and fall to the ground. That's when Louis notices that a scuffle had also broken out between his girlfriend and another woman, who has been identified as a photographer in some reports.
The video shows the two women engaged in a physical altercation against a wall, though it's unclear who was responsible for the initial attack.
Louis then rushes to break up the fight, pulling the other woman off of Eleanor — whom he explicitly calls his "girlfriend" — and onto the ground.
Louis was placed under misdemeanor citizen's arrest and taken into police custody. The police reportedly detained him for an hour until around 1 AM but released him when he posted a $20,000 bond.
"The paparazzi provoked and caused the altercation that occurred with Louis," the singer's lawyer, Martin Singer, said in a statement. "While the altercation was going on with the paparazzi, three other individuals were attacking his girlfriend during this incident and he came to her defense."
TMZ speculates that a civil suit is on the horizon.